


One Little Word

by Arianne



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Crying, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hugs, Love Confessions, Missing Scene, Platonic Cuddling, Spoilers, ending spoilers, gen OT4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 06:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11594931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arianne/pseuds/Arianne
Summary: The night before taking Insomnia, after Noct's first attempt at telling the boys how he feels goes awry, he tries again. Gen OT4 missing scene after the campfire fade-to-black in the English version ending.





	One Little Word

He meant to say it.

In the relative privacy of the worn gray tent, Noct shakes the tears from his eyes. It's a violent motion, as if he could shake the words out of his mouth, as if with or without them he could shake away the weakness that none of them could bear to take into tomorrow.

"Noct." Ignis's soft voice carries. He hadn't bothered to close the tent behind him, not even so much as roll down the flap. When he first fell to his knees here, two sleeping bags askew underneath him, he thought he wanted to get away fast. Maybe he did, and maybe wanted to be followed.

Noctis doesn't turn around.

"Noct." Once again, it isn't a question, and Ignis doesn't ask, either, before Noct can hear his shoesteps on the nylon, then the lighter sound as he leaves his shoes behind. Like this is any other night and he doesn't want to track mud into where they sleep.

Like Noct's going to get any sleep tonight, anyway.

Ignis lets his hand fall on Noct's head, then quickly adjusts to his shoulder. It's Noct's fault for not so much sitting as his knees as falling, and not making any attempt to move once he fell. He thinks about mumbling that he's sorry, but why bother? He already messed up tonight. It isn't fair to jerk them around like that.

Ignis wanted to hear it. He basically said as much. All he's done for Noct, for all of them, and Noct couldn't give him one little word, even when he meant it. Maybe the others did once he left. The campfire between them and the sound of his own shoulders heaving drowned out anything else.

"'m sorry," he ends up saying anyway, without thinking, and Ignis wraps him in his arms. Noct's head fits on his shoulder. He doesn't feel like he could hold it up anymore.

Ignis doesn't dignify his apology with a response before the nylon rustles again. Gladio's heavy gait gives him away, and the way Prompto asks, "Noct?" he can hear his lip trembling.

Noct's vision is blurry with tears, and his voice is thick in his throat, but Ignis smoothly waves them over, replacing his hand on Noct's back as if it pained him not to touch for the mere five seconds the gesture took.

Prompto moves first, pressing his wet face into Noct's back. Gladio sits on his knees, encompassing Ignis as well, chin on top of Noct's head, and while Noct can't feel any more tears in his hair, he saw how they stained his face even by the dim firelight.

He's making a mess of Ignis's shirt, he thinks when he tries to clear his nose, but Ignis's hands across his shoulders are firm enough that he can't move even if he really wanted to. Prompto is warm on his back, shuddering a little faster than Noct himself, and Gladio's steady breathing anchors them all.

This far from the campfire, having shed his jacket in his escape, Noct thinks, he shouldn't get to feel this warm.

After long moments, when he can uncurl his hand from white-knuckling Ignis's shirt, Noct tries to wipe his eyes, the first step to looking at the men who never gave up on him, even when he showed them over and over that they should.

The first attempt is a quick one, as forced as the pronouncement he'd never intended to make. One glance up at Gladio has him squeezing his eyes shut, and Ignis smoothly holds his neck as he hides again. Gladio can't keep emotions from his face, whether he was yelling at Noct back in Cartanica, or laughing at something he'd said from across the backseat, lifetimes ago, or looking down at them all with grief in his watery eyes.

"Shh," Ignis urges, and Noct can feel the sound from beyond his throat, deep in his chest. Like all of them, he's crying too, or at least he was. Noct knew he saw it. He didn't take off his glasses. He didn't have to.

Prompto is fighting his breathing, trying to still his shoulders, and that makes Noct try, too. Why did they ever think they could skip talking about this? That they'd make camp, build a fire, pitch the tent and roll out the sleeping bags, Ignis even asked Noct what he wanted for dinner as they took off their jackets like any one of them could get comfortable. Then Noct made it worse.

He shudders again, deeper this time, and when he opens his mouth, pressed to Ignis's shoulder, no sound comes out. It catches in his throat, captive behind the lump from the tears he can't possibly hold back.

"I --" he manages, the second time -- or was it third, or fourth? He can't do this.

But he can't put his friends through any more.

With effort he lifts his head, and wipes his eyes again, willing them to focus. Their eyes are too much, still. But he can see Ignis's hair, and his back holding Noct up, the stark lines of Gladio's tattoo where his arms hold them, and Prompto's red face when he looks over his shoulder for the briefest moment.

"This is stupid," he derides himself, and would keep at it if Ignis doesn't cut him off with a stern, wordless sound from the back of his throat. It hurts how familiar that is, how many times he'd heard it from a worlds-younger Ignis, when he'd protested something as banal as vegetables, before he -- before they -- 

He needs to stop thinking. Now.

"I love you," Noct says, barely more than a whisper. "I love you all." And once more he hides.

Above him, Gladio nods, and this time tears do fall, Noct feeling them even in his thick hair.

At his back, Prompto makes a high-pitched sound and works his arms in the middle of them all, to squeeze Noct around the waist so hard he would've choked, if his body weren't worn and heavy, drained from his own shudders and gasps for breath, as if he were already dying.

Ignis, who wanted to hear it, who needed so much more but would, he knew, forever accept whatever Noct could give, is the quietest of them all, taking deep, slow breaths, one by one relaxing the hard muscles in his back, taking as much of Noct's weight as he can and letting the others, for once, support them both. With careful, needy movements, he strokes Noct's hair, making a mess of it.

And Noct knows. They'll eventually cry themselves out, maybe even sleep, and tomorrow will come, in which the others will put on a brave face for him, ever at his side, and Noctis will carry himself a king, until it's done.

For now, Noct knows, that's how his friends, the ones he loves most in the world, can say it back.

**Author's Note:**

> Tonight I finished the game, cried a lot, wrote this, and am now uploading it all within the span of about 2 hours. Helped by demishock, who not only told me how the Japanese version of this scene went with the love confession that I expected, but helped fact check some details (Ignis visibly crying, Noct's Kingly Raiment outfit, reminding me of the location in chapter 10!) as this stream of consciousness came into being. After all, when translations miss an opportunity, what better way to fix it than by adding yet more angst?


End file.
